


Pisces Rising

by Sashataakheru



Series: Pisces Rising - Astrological Dystopia AU [1]
Category: The Move RPF
Genre: 750words, Flash Fic, Gen, Greek gods, Grudges, Initiations, Predestination, Rebellion, Scarification, astrological dystopia, interfering gods, journeys, unwilling companions, wounding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sashataakheru/pseuds/Sashataakheru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Accepting the future makes for a certain world, but Trevor never really found that very satisfying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 750words made me do it. I can't decide if this is the beginning or the ending or something else entirely. But, man, I had a blank page, and Trevor just began talking, so. :D?

I wish I could say I meant for it all to happen. I can't say I ever wanted things to end the way they did, but no one ever believes that now. We live in a world full of prediction and certainty. No one ever accidentally does anything anymore. They obey blindly what they are told will happen, without even bothering to question it. Your sign is your fate, and no one dares contradict it. 

Yeah, well, except I did. I worked out a long time ago that there was no real force behind them, apart from some very convincing propaganda. They made it so believable that no one though they might be lying to them. It was all just another form of societal control, and because it's so benign, no one bothers to question it.

A book changed my life. It was an occult book, an astrology book, one that hadn't been seen for centuries. But there it was, tucked away at the back of an old library, forgotten under a pile of dust. I think isolation saved it. It was in an old part of town where no one had lived for decades after a fire gutted half the street. This was another problem with the predictions. The city became an amorphous creature, forever changing its shape. There were so many abandoned parts of town that I was sure they'd actually lost track of them all. The city had actually shifted ten kilometres south of where it was when it was founded. That's how much it changed. 

The book was simple, but it told me all I needed to know to make me doubt everything I'd been told. I'd been brought up to believe your sign was your destiny. I was said to be a Taurus, but if the book I read said I was a Pisces, and it taught me how to calculate my real natal chart. I stayed in that abandoned library for weeks, stealing out only to get food, as I worked on my chart. I wanted to know the truth, now that it was within my grasp. 

I knew next to nothing about prediction, anyway. I hadn't been taught anything about it in school, because my future said I wasn't meant to be a Seer. The Seers worked in the highest levels of the State, writing the predictions for everyone. They decided who was to join their ranks. It was always said to be some sort of mystical power, and there were rituals done every year to welcome new Seers into the fold. 

The only future they ever saw for me was a petty thief. I'd end up in jail by the time I was 25, and I'd be shanked when I was 33 by my cellmate. That was what I was told when I was 7, when we are told what our future holds. Every kid gets to know, because then the future is certain. Kids are sent to the schools that they are meant to go to, and all I got was a shitty comprehensive that was short-staffed and as close to anarchy as possible. No one cared about us. I stopped going when I realised they didn't notice I wasn't there. I never went back.

Perhaps I am living up to my future, but it's hard to find the persistence to care when they've told you what you'll end up doing with your life. They'd written me off as a petty thief when I was 7 years old. Why would they care at all about my wellbeing? I stopped caring about their system at the same time. If that's all they thought I'd be, well, what was the point in trying?

And, hey, look, I have nicked stuff in the past, but man, you leave home at fourteen, and what are you left with but thievery? But I didn't do it for the thrill of it. I tried my hardest to keep myself honest. I did odd jobs around the place, and whatever other jobs I could find that would give me some money and keep me from theft. But they already knew I was no good, and never gave me enough of a chance to make anything good of myself. Y'see, any job you go for, they look your future up before they employ you, just to make sure. Once they knew I was destined to be a thief, they didn't have the time of day for me. It's like they could've stopped this future of mine coming to pass if they'd just given me a chance, but the more they rejected me, the more I had to rely on crime.

But I swear, I never nicked anything I didn't need to survive. Food, clothes, a little petrol to keep the bike going, a little petty cash, but that's it, I swear. I never nicked stuff to sell. I never hurt no one. I never broke into anyone's place. I never did anything but try to survive. I wanted to keep me head down so I wouldn't go to jail. If I'd nicked anything too valuable, I'd have been caught. 

I'm leaving town now, though. There ain't nothing left for me here, not now. I got my chart done, and it told me there was hope. I weren't destined for crime at all. All I had to do was get out of town. I didn't know where I was going. I'd only ever known the city and its changing borders. Nothing else existed outside of it, or so we were always told. But I found an old map in that library too, which showed me there was more out there, if I just went to find it. 

I don't know what I'll find when I get out there. I have no idea how long I'll survive. But if I can find another town that isn't as cruel as this one, I'll be happy. Maybe I'll stay there, and break my own destiny. I can do that now, I know I can. And all it took was that old book to show me things weren't the way I thought they were.


	2. Escape, and Afterwards

It's strange to think I'm actually outside the city walls. I never thought I'd ever see what was really outside. No one ever leaves the city, so there's no reason to know. I always imagined there was some sort of oasis, like there was some sort of forest surrounding us. But all I've seen so far is desert. It's desperately hot and dry, and I'm not sure where I am. The nights are freezing, and I'm only still surviving because I scavenged a few blankets, and I've been skipping through the old abandoned neighbourhoods that are outside the city walls. I know I'll run out of them sooner or later, though. I'm hoping I can survive long enough to work out where I need to go, and pray I will be able to escape. 

I don't regret leaving, though. I don't miss anything in that bloody city. They bloody abandoned me when I was 7. I don't owe them anything. I have never been happier since I left. I might only be seventeen, but I was a prisoner in that bloody city. Always the bloody fates kept everyone there. No one leaves, because the Seers say no one bloody leaves. 

But I bloody left. I took all the old books, and everything I couldn't bear to leave behind, and I bloody left. I'll never go back, not for anything. 

It's been weird, though. I've been dreaming of Hermes ever since I left. Like, every bloody night, He's there in me dreams, just ... sometimes, He's just there, y'know? But He keeps showing me a map I ain't never seen before. He tells me to keep going, but it's hard when I don't know where to go. I wanna be free, I wanna go find another city to live in, but there ain't no sight of one for miles. It's just bloody desert. 

But Hermes is with me, and He told me one night that there is a city where I can go. It belongs to other gods and other people, but it would be safe. He said there's an old trade route that once joined the two cities. If I can find it, I will be able to follow it through the windy desert to find a better home. I really hope He's not leading me astray. I keep praying to all the Gods to keep me safe. I need to know they're looking after me, because I ain't got no one out here.

I mean, I have seen a few old Seers out here, ones that got exiled. I never talked to 'em, though. They're strange creatures. Half-mad, or so they say. That's why they get exiled, once the madness from the Gods proves impossible to continue recording oracles. I pity 'em, but not much. They'll all die out there. I just see 'em sitting there, staring off into the ether, just lookin' fer all the world like they're just waiting for Hades to come for 'em. Nah, I'll steer clear of 'em. They can't tell on me anyway, not out here. 

It's still weird, though. Weird, and so bloody quiet. I find meself chanting some of the hymns I remember from the Temple, just for some ounce of noise. It ain't all that comforting, because I still ain't sure if Apollon is someone I should even care about, or if He's just a mad god I should run away from. I ain't sure at all if what happened in the city is all His doing, or if it's just done in His name. 

Hermes said Apollon's not to blame, but I'm not sure I'm willing to believe the Gods right now. But they're all I've got. I bloody hope Hermes is telling the truth about the old trade route, because otherwise, I'll probably end up wandering around out here until I die like them old Seers. 

Though I do keep thinking about what they said about me, all them Seers, when they told me what the future held for me. Is it still true? Was it ever true? How much of the future do we make for ourselves? Like, I kept thinking, like, if you know what's meant to happen to you, and you just accept it like the sky's blue, like, does that just make it all come true anyway, like, you just do what the oracles say, because you can't change the future? Or do we have the freedom to change it?

Like, I don't remember them telling me I was gonna leave when I was seventeen. They never said I'd leave the city, when they told me what future they saw for me. So, are they wrong, then? Or do they just not tell you everything, and hope it all works out the way they say? 

I dunno why this bothers me so much, though. I just - I can't believe this is the future that the gods wanted for me. It's like they've given up on me since before I was even born. Like, they didn't even give a shit about me, and let me be abandoned. Cos that's what it's bloody felt like me whole life. I never felt like they cared. The fates saw nothing but a decrepit life of crime for me, so why would they bother with me? I got no chance at all. I reckon I got more chance out here in this bloody desert than i had back in town. I mean, what else explains why they'd just leave me to survive on me own like this? 

I don't know. Maybe I ain't cut out for all this philosophising. I weren't never very good at it, and I ain't always good at thinking about all them big things, like they teach the Seers. All I know is how to survive. I don't know anything else. But I'm learning, little bits, from the books. I ain't very fast at reading 'em, but I crave the words in them. I need the information they hold, because if I don't take it fer meself, I ain't never going to get it. 

Maybe there's a reason I'm dreaming about Hermes, then. He does like to talk to me about big things, things they never taught me when I was at school. Maybe I'll trust Him, then, because He's the only bloody being who's ever seen fit to treat me like a human being, like I got things I can do for the world. He keeps saying I need to kep going, because I need to get to the old city at the end of the trade route and tell them my story. Apparently no one's been there for six centuries. I can't half believe that. How's come no one's been there since then? Have we really been so isolated for so long? Might explain a lot, though.


	3. Turned My Back On You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IDEK. I am just writing it as it comes to me. I will make sense of it later, and maybe when I get around to editing it all together, I'll decide if it's all going to be journal entries or more just plain 1st person story telling.

Hermes has gone bloody mad, I reckon. Brought this bloody half-starved Seer along, said we're to travel together. Like Hades we are. Them bloody Seers condemned me. I don't owe him nothing. He can cry all he likes about being starving and not wanting to be there, either. I'm half inclined to leave him behind when we pack up camp and move on. I can't trust a man like that. 

Hermes said he was exiled, that's why he's out there starving, but that don't mean anything to me. Got what he deserved, didn't he? Bloody Seers. Ruined my life, they did. And anyway, it was him what told me my future an' all, too. I'd remember that bloody face anywhere. He told me what the fates had foreseen for me, and he didn't even give a shit that he was condemning me to prison and an early bloody death. He just looked off into the ether, half-mad, he was. He didn't care about me, so why should I care about him? No way, man. I ain't doing anything for him, not if I can help it.

* * *

_Three days later..._  
That bloody Seer is still with me. Hermes keeps bringing him back when I try to leave him to rot in the desert. I'm not sure He'll ever stop bringing him back, and who am I to win against a God like Hermes, anyway? I still ain't spoken to that Seer, though. I know I'd just yell at him and curse him, and he's half sick still, like he's still starving and maybe the desert might take him anyway.

We've made no bloody progress towards finding that road, either. I'm not sure it still exists, though Hermes is quite sure it does. I think He's half-mad, but I'd never bloody say it, though. I can't see how we'll find a way out through all this mess, though. We've left the last edges of the city behind, and now we're approaching the proper desert. It ain't very nice, and there's no shelter, nor food to nick. Hermes says He'll keep us fed, and He has somehow found food out of thin air, but He is a god, so p'raps it's not so surprising He can do that. 

I still don't know why He's so keen to keep us alive, though. Like, He's properly concerned about keeping us alive, which is why He keeps making sure we got food and shelter. It's mad, though. I think I'd have appreciated it more if He'd given me some company I'd be willing to have, rather than the damn Seer who condemned me. 

He ain't spoken much, though. The Seer, I mean. He does ask for food, like, but I ignore him, and I think he's decided to ignore me back. I ain't got nothing to say to him. Seems to spend most of his time praying to Dionysos and Apollon, like he's been abandoned by them or something. Serves him right for what he did to me. 

I mean, I know Hermes has said he was just doing his job, just delivering the oracles like they'd all been taught to do, but he still said I was meant for nothing. He still said it. Because of him, I was sent off to this shitty school who didn't give a fuck about me. I couldn't get a bloody job for love nor money, because all they saw was a bloody criminal. He bloody ruined my life by saying that. No one ever gave me a bloody chance. 

It was so bad my parents even gave up on me. Like, I didn't even stay til I was fourteen. I left home and went to make my own life. They weren't going to care for a criminal. They gave all their love and attention to my brothers, who were slated to be engineers. I seen 'em do it, too. Like, when they left their posh school and went to build things, civic buildings and whatnot, working for the State. Got paid a pretty penny for it all, too, and they shared none of it with me. They both bloody disowned me, anyway, like me parents did. Got no one now, but meself. Meself, and that bloody Seer.

* * *

_A week later..._  
Seer's still with us. I still hate him, but. I snapped at him a couple of nights ago. He were just asking fer food, and I told him how I felt about him. Nearly bloody smacked him round a few times, had Hermes not been there and had that bloody Seer not looked like a wretched creature. Bloody skin and bones, he is. Not worth the effort, I reckon. I oughta have 

_Do you know what it's like to hear the voice of the Gods?_ , he asked me just now. _Do you know what it's like to be a slave to a god? To be trapped and chained and locked away, to never see the light of day?_

He showed me the lesions on his wrists from the chains he used to bear. Right nasty mess they were, all bruised and cut up and swollen. Can't believe they're still like that, not if he said he's been out here for months. Though maybe he just thinks it's months. I'm not sure he knows what time of day it is half the time. 

They'd chain him up from dawn til dusk on the days they took the oracles, and he'd be bound to write down everything he was told. He said he used to cry with pain sometimes, that he weren't cut out for it at all, and his hands cramped from all the writing. Said he'd worn the collar around his neck since he was a kid, when he'd been taken to the hermitage to become a Seer. They burnt marks onto his face and hands, and he was just meant to take the pain as a sign of acceptance. 

I couldn't bear to look at those, though. They ain't properly healed, and his face is all scarred. He told me to hold his hands, to feel the wounds they made on his body. Said the Gods had decreed it, but he wasn't sure. He had never been sure of anything since he went to become a Seer. I dunno about that, though. But what do I know, anyway? I never saw the building. I never saw a Seer after I was seven. 

The worst one was on his back. It was meant as a reminder of his servitude. He just took off his robes, and there was this striping great wound across his back. It looked worse than it might've done, given how skinny he was. It bit angrily across his spine, and there was two tattoos, proclaiming who he was bound to. He didn't half speak after showing me that. He just bent over, and I could feel him wince, and he just cried. I didn't half know what to do, like, what was I supposed to do with a broken Seer? I can't look after him. I can barely look after meself.


	4. The Long And Winding Sand Dunes

The days grow long, and the heat never tires. The desert is a horrid place to be, and I am bloody sick of it. We've been walking for weeks, or so it seems. I can't half remember how long it's been anymore. All the days slip into each other. All we do is walk until we are aching, and then find somewhere to sleep for the night. Over, and over, and over again, that is the life we have.

It's bloody awful, if you ask me, particularly cos I'm stuck with those two Seers. I still haven't quite forgiven them for condemning me like they did, even if they never felt they were making that decision for themselves, just reading off the fates. But it still feels like it was them to me. But maybe they don't really understand how society worked outside of the Oracle. Out there in the city, where everyone held the word of the Seers as some sort of unmutable truth, your fate was set in stone. They were all publicised, like, the ones you get when yer seven, in all the parts of the city. Everyone knows what your fate is, and because no one ever bloody deviates from it, it all comes to pass. So's when they said I was going to be in jail and dead by thirty or something, like, everyone knew that.

For a long time, I was angry at them, and at Apollo, for what they'd done to me. I had no life at all, and I felt like the whole city had rejected me. Even my own parents had rejected me. Like, what kind of civilisation allows parents to disown their children because of a bad fate? Who allows that to happen?

Nah, it makes no sense to me at all, that place. Full of injustice and broken people. It's such a horrid place, and I'm glad I left it behind. I had no future there, so it seemed pointless to stick around.

At least I left by choice. Them Seers got exiled, shunted off and shamed for deviating from the proper order of things, or so one of 'em said. I don't really speak to them much. I still don't really trust them, though the more they talk about their experiences, the more I can see that even they were aware that the system was broken, and it needed to be fixed. That brings me some comfort to know I wasn't the only one who saw through the thin veneer of the oracles to what was really going on. 

They're hard to talk to, though, them Seers. It makes 'em mad anyway, and that doesn't help, so they're all off with the fairies from time to time, though I do know they're getting better. The blond one, he's more grounded now than he was when he first turned up. I can talk to him like a normal person for more than a moment, and I think he's aware of that, too. He seems happier, though I can't fathom why. We don't really talk about that. 

Hermes has told us more about where we're going, and why we have to go, but He's still vague and unsure about it, and won't tell us everything. I think He's not actually sure His plans will come to pass, and that worries me. I'm the last person who'd suggest a god like Hermes was wrong, but I have thought about it. Perhaps we'll get to Nova Roma, and they'll be waiting to haul us off to prison or something. We'll be enslaved and tortured, just because we're not Roman citizens.

Our city hasn't been part of the Roman Empire for centuries, really. Like, there are other Greek cities that are Roman citizens, but we're not. For some strange reason I can't even remember anymore, we broke away, and there was a big war. It's talked about in all the myths, that Apollon saved us from the might of Rome, and with Ares by His side, slaughtered their armies, to free us from their tyranny. 

It's always sounded like bollocks to me. I mean, maybe there was a war, but maybe we just got exiled. Maybe the Romans never wanted us, anyway. I know the two cities used to trade, and I remember reading somewhere that we used to send them Seers, as well as incense, gold, and grains. The two cities had a great relationship, but for some reason, it all came to an end, and we became isolated. 

I sometimes wonder what might've happened if we'd stayed connected to them. Perhaps we wouldn't have come this far if we'd still had Roman trade coming in. We might've felt we had support if we'd been able to suppress the bastards who put the oracles in such a supreme position before it came to shape the whole city's society. 

It all came after the war, apparently, all the oracles and fates and such. People wanted security. They wanted to know what was going to happen, so they could plan for the future. They didn't like uncertainty, because it might mean slaughter. Somehow, Apollon decided to grant their wish, either through ignorance, or hope, or for some other reason known only to Himself. Perhaps He knew it would ruin us in time. 

It's a strange thing to think about, really. I'm never sure how much of the city's history I learnt at school is real, or just exaggerations and lies. There's been no external record of events here for so long, I reckon it's probably near to impossible to find out what's really been going on. It makes it impossible to consider fighting back, because how can you when you don't really know who the real enemy is? Is it the Seers? Is it the state politicians? Or is it Apollon Himself? 

None of these questions have easy answers, least, not that I can find. The Seers are convinced it's the High Seers who control everything, but I'm not so sure. They're just the ones giving out the oracles. It needs more than a Seer to become so entrenched in society such that it comes to shape it entirely. That, to me, doesn't sound like just the work of the High Seers. But what would I know, anyway? I left school when I was fourteen. I never learnt much at all. All I knew was that the State didn't care about me, and lived my life accordingly. That's how I've found myself out here in the desert with Hermes and two exiled Seers, trying to make our way to Nova Roma to find safety. I must be going bloody mad.


	5. A Stranger On A Crowded Street

This Roman city is very strange. I cannot fathom why we have been brought here. It's hard to find anyone who speaks my language, and I ain't never learnt their Latin tongue anyway. They do religion all wrong here, like, with how they worship the gods. They tell me my gods are just their gods, but that ain't so right I can't bear to think about it. My gods ain't nothing like their gods, not in my experience anyway. 

We're staying in this villa owned by this legionary. He speaks Greek, so at least we can talk to each other, but I don't like the rest of his household, and they don't seem to like me much, either. I mean, it's a nice enough house, I suppose, and we're kept in good enough living quarters, but I still feel like a stranger in a large foreign city. We rarely go out, cos the people look at us funny, like we've got two heads or something. It's not like we weren't welcomed warmly enough. They brought us in like old friends and made us feel like friends. But maybe it's just because we're not just from any Greek city, but the weird one with the Seers, maybe that's what's different. I mean, the man we're staying with has told us there's a good Greek population, so it's not like they ain't never seen a Greek before. 

The two Seers who came with me ain't spoken to me still after all this time we spent together. They spend all day in the library, as far as I can tell. It's all books and other things I can't hardly read, so I don't do that. I just write, trying to get my thoughts in order. Sometimes, I wander the streets, trying to understand the language around me. It's so alienating, not being able to understand anyone. They're all talking in strange words, and I don't understand any of it. I try not to talk to anyone. I just slink around, and try not to be seen. 

The man we're staying with insists I wear a toga, whatever that is meant to be. It's like wearing a weird bed sheet, and it's so uncomfortable to wear. I feel so strange wearing it. I'd rather just wear a tunic and sandals, or perhaps some good leather trousers and a shirt with a jacket. But man, togas. I will never get used to them. 

There's this temple, this large temple that everyone goes to once a week, and it's dedicated to this two-faced God. It's got these gigantic gates at the front, and apparently they're open during peacetime, and closed during wartime, as if the god can control those sort of things. I don't understand Him. I was taken in there once, so our host could explain to us how the gods fitted into the city state. He's the god of beginnings and endings. I can't think of a god like that that I know, but I never knew much about gods anyway. We worshipped the Seers back home, not gods. 

I watched 'em do a public sacrifice. Our host said it was a Greek style rite, like it was meant to impress me. I just remember watching 'em trying to speak my language, and invoke my gods, and it just ... didn't work. It felt so wrong to be calling on Hermes like that. They got His epithets all wrong. I dunno who they thought they were calling, but it didn't sound like the Hermes I know. They didn't circle the altar properly, either. Got the order of things wrong. 

The Greek banquet we had after was also weird. I mean, it was obvious they had some cooks who knew how to make our food properly. Like, there were dishes I remembered from home, just like they were meant to be. But we're sitting in this banqueting hall, and I've got my bloody toga on, and I'm trying to figure out how to eat the way these Romans do, which is just weird. Like, they serve the dishes in all the wrong order, and those lounges are so hard to lie on properly and eat at the same time. I dunno. I didn't like it, anyway. 

The Roman food's alright, though. It's simple, and I don't mind it so much, really. I can see some that are like ones I know, but like, different, just a little. Lots of recognisable food, but they do serve some weird things. But I've always been a simple kid, poor, y'know? All we usually had was beans and vegetables, and whatever else I could nick. I ain't used to all this posh food. It's weird. 

But then, everything about this city is weird. I still got Hermes with me, chatting away. He helps me when I'm walking around the city. He shows me where things are, helps me find my way back, and sometimes He tells me what the people are saying. I often feel lost, though. Like, it's so lonely out here, being the only one I know. The only one I talk to. I'm still looking for the other Greek citizens, because I really badly need to speak to someone else who knows my culture. I'm homesick for that bloody city and it's Seers. I even went to Apollon's temple, just to see if it might help. But all it did was remind me why I bloody left.

I asked the younger Seer if he saw this journey in my natal chart, back when he was writing my future. He said he wasn't really sure. He doesn't really remember much about the oracles he wrote. Apparently he did thousands of them, and cos of his madness, he don't really remember much about anything. I kinda feel sorry for him, but I still hate him for what he did for me. He ruined my future in that city, and it'll take a while for me to forgive him for it. 

I don't know what I'll do in this city. I've been here a month now, and it's not like I want to go back home, even though sometimes I really do, just to feel less alone, it's hard to know what I'm meant to do now. I'm not a proper citizen, so while I don't have to do public rites and sacrifices, I don't get much else either. I'm just a useless, ill-educated, unskilled kid. What can I even do in a city like this? 

The man I'm staying with keeps wanting me to stay and work in his library, but I don't know what good I'll be to him. He knows I can't speak Latin. I'm not that good at reading, or writing. I'm alright, but I ain't no scholar. But he keeps teaching me Latin, and bringing me little things to try to read. I dunno. I was just going to see if the Legion might have me. I think I'd do alright as a solider, if I couldn't do anything else, and I know there are Greek units there where I'd be with others like me. But he keeps teaching me Latin. Perhaps Hermes and this man have other plans to me, though why they've picked me, I have no idea. I ain't no good for anyone, let alone for some Roman legionary.


End file.
